Category Archives: 2025 NFL Post Season

’25 NFC Divisional – LA Rams vs Chicago Bears

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The beginning and end to this game will be how the Rams  handle the cold and the wind. Back before the ’85 NFC Championship Game between these two teams Mike Ditka said “The Rams, they’re a Smith, we’re the Grabowski’s” referring to the fair haired soft Southern Californians vs tough gritty Chicagoans.

Matt Stafford is our choice for MVP of the league and he’ll need all his guile to get past the Bears. However he struggles from time to time amd it shows up for a half in games. Most notably on the road where he went 4-4 on the season. He woke up late in a dogfight in Carolina and pulled it out with a 4th quarter TD. He couldnt in the regular season in a road loss to the Panthers and this game is going to be 50+ degrees colder than that with windchill.

He struggled in the cold whem he plaued in the NFC North in the 9 years he was there.

Chicago’s defense would be carved up inside a Dome but the elements belong in the game. They will take advantage of the noise and the predicted 17 mph winds will cause issues. They are 6-2 at home and have found more ways to win with 2nd year pro Caleb Williams.

Williams with 5 4th quarter comebacks is coming of age similar to John Elway back in 1986. In his 1st playoff he had to make it happen on 4th and 8 and made a legendary throw for the 1st down.  Make that 6 4th quarter come from behind wins as they vanquished the Packers 31-27.

Teams traveling east for cold playoff games usually come up short. Williams did play for Southern Cal but this is his 2nd season in The Windy City and he is accustomed to throwing there. The wind didnt bother him against Green Bay last week.

He will make plays on the Rams secondary and the Bears should outlast the frozen Rams for a 28-16 win.

The Bears will prevail…

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’25 AFC Divisonal Preview: Buffalo Bills at Denver Broncos

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We’re locked in now where the rubber meets the road for NFL teams. All the promise and build up leads to this moment where plans are actualized on the field of battle and you’re rewarded with a berth in the conference championship game. In this instance, the Bills plight has morphed into Josh Allen’s career arc which needs a Super Bowl triumph to mark him as an all time great. Or do we get Sean Payton’s anointed resurrection from unfulfilled promise after his Super Bowl XLIV triumph has gathered dust on the shelf. That was nearly 16 years ago.

The question among most looking at this game is can Bo Nix make enough plays to fight off Josh Allen?? We’ll get back to this.

Bonito’s 14 sacks and Cooper with 8 have led one of the NFL’s greatest pass rushes.

The Denver defense leads the marquee having collected a team record 68 sacks, the NFL’s #2 ranking (4,730 yds allowed) and field the reigning NFLDPoY in Pat Surtain III. Its imperative the Bills establish the run and hold off this blood thirsty unit. Can they?? Well the Bills do come in with NFL rushing champion James Cook (1,621 yards/12TDs) and most forgot he ran for 121 against the Broncos in last year’s 31-7 Wildcard victory.

The matchup that will determine the game is OLB Nick Bonito vs LT Dion Dawkins. Bonito is 2nd in the NFL in ESPN’s pass rushing win rate while Buffalo’s line ranked 6th in pass blocking by PFF. Its imperative the Bills establish the run and play from a 2 TE alignment with Dalton Kincaid (39 rec. 571 yds 5tds) & Dawson Know (34 rec. 417 yds 4tds) to force Bonito to rush from further out as well as chip him when they do go out. The additional blocking aids Cook in rushing and contribute with key first down gaining receptions. The Bills will need to help Dawkins with the season on the line and have to establish Cook period.

Cook in last year’s wild card game against Denver.

One uneasy truth is the Broncos’ Bo Nix has struggled in the 2nd half of the season. He has 5 come from behind victories with the biggest the 33-32 chronicled here.

Yet when you look closely its occurred over the whole season. From that come from behind thriller over the Giants, Nix has gone 114 of 176 for 1,103 yds 9tds and 4 interceptions. His average per attempt is 6.2 yds and he has a passer rating of 89.6. Yet if you are new here I showed you how useless passer rating is and is easily manipulated with b.s. bubble screen completions.

Nix led the NFL with 612 attempts and only has thrown for 3,931 yards!?! Are you serious? In 1984 Dan Marino in 564 attempts threw for a then record 5,084 yds and 48 tds not the 25tds and 1,153 less yards. This isn’t effective as nix hasn’t passed the eyeball test over these last 5 weeks. In fact First Things First showed his position among NFL quarterbacks yesterday with this graphic:

These are not statistics of a QB that should win an AFC Divisional Playoff Game.

Can the Bills stop the run and force the game into Bo Nix’s hands? That is the question. If they can you do realize the Bills have the NFL’s 7th ranked defense only finishing 250 yards behind Denver (4,983 ot 4,730). While the Bills do not have a closer they will need someone to make 1 or 2 big plays to capture 1st half momentum.

In the end Josh Allen and the running attack needs to take control and they will. The Bills will be able to keep the Broncos pass rush at bay with sustained drives to wear them out and slow them with a short range passing attack. Not to pad stats but to move the chains and keep possession of the ball. Josh and the Bills will win this one in a slow steady approach winning 30-16 pulling away on a late touchdown.

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If The Bills Lose This Wildcard to Jacksonville HC Sean McDermott Will Be Fired

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You heard it here first! Yes Sean McDermott will be let go if they lose to the Jacksonville Jaguars in this weekend’s wildcard round.

The first thing that comes to mind is the Patriots have been resurrected after a 4 year slumber to snatch the AFC East from Buffalo. A proven NFL Coach in Mike Vrabel and brain trust from the Belichick regime have built a facsimile of the dyanasty whose ashes have just gone out will be around for a long time. The Bills brass will make a move just as the Ravens did realizing the current regime has underachieved in aiding their franchise quarterback with the horses to get to the Super Bowl.

They have gone as far as they could with Josh Allen and a couple guys from the local bar. The Bills need blue chip talent and can’t waste all of Allen’s career. A new offensive approach needs to be installed taking the ball out of Allen’s hands and reducing the number of hits he takes each year. I explained this fully back in November when The Chancellor offered “Has Buffalo’s Super Bowl Window Closed?” Sad to say as a Bills fan I concluded it had.

Josh your mission should you choose to accept it is to beat a rising Jaguars team that has won 7 straight or 8 of their last 9. The team from Duvall beat down the #1 seeded Denver Broncos just 3 weeks ago where we had embarrassing road losses in Miami & Atlanta. One team fired its coach (Falcons – Raheem Morris) and the Dolphins should have fired theirs.

McDermott guys are “try hard Rudy’s” in a sea of blue chip NFL talent. When Josh Hines-Allen & Travon Walker come off the corner this weekend. I pray we have worked on half roll plays and work in some runs with Allen as its imperative to get off to a big 1st half lead…. If we don’t there will be a coaching change as the Bills will realize we have wasted a significant prime of Josh Allen’s career.

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Thoughts On The Ravens Firing John Harbaugh

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John Harbaugh being let go needed to happen as his message had become stale in the locker room. Beyond that you can’t waste the career of a franchise quarterback in the prime of his career when you have Super Bowl aspirations. Even The Chancellor had them picked to appear in Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara.

Lamar Jackson isn’t innocent in any of this as his playoff performances have been skittish and incomplete. He has been 3-5 in the playoffs and has yet to play a complete game. Jackson supporters point to last year’s playoff loss in Buffalo blaming TE Mark Andrews’ 2 point conversion dropped pass but omit Jackson’s 5 of 9 103 yds and an interception falling behind 21-10 at the half.

What about the 2023 AFC Championship when he came out hot but fell in a rut while Patrick Mahomes built a 17-7 lead? As a #1 seed with homefield advantage and the #1 defense, their star QB went 5 of 12 for 67 yards and 1 TD in the 1st half. The worm started to turn in many circles as ’23 mirrored ’19 where the defense had been dominant but Jackson and the homefield throughout Ravens fell 28-12 in the divisional to the Tennesee Titans. You don’t want the stats and Jackson didn’t get the Ravens a touchdown until 11 minutes left in the 4th quarter. What went wrong??

In my original series Shameful Impatience With Black Quarterbacks, one of the warnings I gave when Lamar Jackson was coming to the NFL was this: “One is the lack of commitment to fully developing black qbs to be more than an offensive anomaly for a few years.” In this instance they didnt but under the guise of hiring 4 different offensive coordinators in 5 years, they ran practically the same offense – Read Option run first from the Pistol. What I meant originally and expanded on elsewhere is the coaching to bring the QB out of the running stage of his career into one where he passes more as the years went on. The specificity of pass play dynamics from under center on time to intermediate routes. This was Harbaugh’s failing.

Keep in mind my article was right before the 2018 NFL Draft when the Ravens selected Jackson.

Also from Shameful Impatience  “Its on the offensive coaches to gradually mature these scramblers into pocket quarterbacks. Landry did it with Roger Staubach and Bill Walsh and Mike Holmgren did this with Steve Young. It takes years… it takes commitment.” I reminded you that Buddy Ryan brought in BYU passing guru Doug Scovil to coach the passing game to a young raw Randall Cunningham in the mid 80s.

They leaned as much for Lamar to “use his legs” at 29 years of age as he had at 21 years of age and the punishment is catching up with him. He has missed 17 games over the last seven years due to the blows he takes. Think back to Steve Young in 1987 with the 49ers, he was scrambling while learning The West Coast Offense out in San Francisco. Fast forward 7 seasons and in 1994 he was winning his 3rd straight passing crown and taking the 49ers to Super Bowl XXIX. There he carved the Chargers up for a record 6TDs to win the game. Throwing from the pocket… if you don’t remember click here.

Harbaugh is the Head Coach and should have told his OC I want to utilize Jackson running more back in that ’23 AFC Championship since he came out cold throwing. He didn’t… He never adjusted to an OC that didn’t run the same college plays that don’t bode well in the NFL playoffs nor teach Lamar an offensive approach allowing for audibles to a more sophisticated pass play when he needed to. There were times he needed to tell OC Todd Munken to get Derrick Henry in the game and stop going with lesser running backs. Asert yourself as the Head Coach and override your OC trying to show how much of a genius he is. Especially when its your ass on the line for winning and losing these big games.

In the NFL you can’t waste the prime of a franchise quarterback and Jackson just finished his 8th year and just turned 29 years old today! His 29th birthday and here we are he hasn’t been submerged in a true NFL passing attack. He should be much further along and has maybe another 3 years playing in the style he’s accustomed to. The Ravens need to bring in a real offensive approach with their next move whether a defensive coach and an OC who can teach true QB play. They don’t need to bring in one of these Madden Coaches who doesn’t understand the importance of full dimensional football which includes a Derrick Henry in the attack.

They had a good run with Jackson being named MVP on 2 occassions but they need a change to prolong Jackson’s tenure as a franchise quarterback and reach the Super Bowl. They have to get him under center and teach the full nuance of playing NFL quarterback and get him out of these garbage read option college plays. If they don’t he will never beat a sophisticated defense in an AFC Championship Game.

Jonn Harbaugh will go on and coach again in the NFL but he needs to reboot with a team playing more traditional offense. With this marriage it was just time.

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